Dual nationality

Finally, it appears Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik has made the revelation that there are other parliamentarians holding dual nationality who have escaped notice. Talking to the media on Saturday, he remarked there were a number of other dual nationality holders sitting in the National Assembly as well whose names he would disclose if asked by the Supreme Court or the government to do so. That in a way indicates his willingness to work in consonance with the orders of the court. But he also urged the need that accountability should be across the board. That is welcome and surprising at the same time, coming from a man who is right in the centre of the SC’s decision to demolish dual nationality membership in the assemblies.The ECP must take this opportunity to announce measures of its own that ought to include asking for affidavits from the sitting members of the parliament without delay. A mechanism for closer scrutiny of the nationality status of parliamentarians would have to be evolved. The public too must help in the ongoing process. It is high time those who have so far kept their nationality status under wraps were exposed. Unless such self-seeking individuals are evicted from the august houses, the institutional basis of the democratic system cannot be oriented towards the reforms that many of the parties keep harping on. Similarly, judges and generals too ought to face the same criteria in being declared eligible to hold the important offices they occupy.